Daily Search Forum Recap: January 14, 2010

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

What's The Hold Up With The Google Caffeine Index?
About 6 months ago, the Google Caffeine public preview went live. In November, they took the Caffeine preview offline and since then, webmasters have been on their toes worried about when Caffeine will go live. We had rumor after rumor with speculation that it was live, as recently as a week ago - but each time, they were false alerts. The question people are now asking in the long WebmasterWorldthread is where is it already?

I Now See Favicons in Google Webmaster Tools
Two days ago, I reported that people were seeing favicons in Google Webmaster Tools. I personally did not see the favicons until last night. Here is a picture from my Google Webmaster Tools account: I like it and so do many others. It isn't a big change, but does help you find the right site in a batch of dozens or more. Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

Google AdWords Click Through Rates: 2% is Average But Double Digits is Great
I don't believe you often see Google AdWords representatives talking about click-through rates. But in a Google AdWords Help thread, I spotted AdWordsPro, an official Google representative, taling about averages. In short, he said that a good average to aim for in an ads click through rate (CTR) would be 2%. But he/she has seen CTRs in the double digits for campaigns that are constantly tuned and tweaked by advertisers. Let me quote AdWordsPro: On

If Microsoft / Yahoo Deal Goes Through: adCenter Will Replace Yahoo Search Marketing
There seems to be a lot of confusion out there in the paid search ad space. If the Microsoft & Yahoo do end up closing their deal, which seems likely to me, Yahoo Search Marketing will no longer exist. The Yahoo Search Marketing console and campaigns you currently run will be either automatically imported into Microsoft adCenter or you will have to manually make that change. Microsoft adCenter will power the ads on Yahoo, Yahoo

Google China's Office Becomes a Shrine
If you happen to visit Google China, you may notice that there are people who are placing flowers and candles by their Google sign outside the building. There are actually a ton of pictures of this being done inside and outside of the Google China office on Flickr. Here is one picture taken from DigitalPoint Forums. This is clearly the reaction by some Chinese searchers on Google's decision to back out of China if China

Want To Rank High in Google's Real Time Search? Get More Twitter Followers
A month ago, Google added real-time search results in the form of Tweets from Twitter and other real-time search related sources. Yesterday at Search Engine Land I covered an interview with Amit Singhal of Google via Technology Review. The interview explains how Google ranks those real-time search results - on some level. Want to rank high in those Google real-time results? It seems like all you need is a lot of followers and you should

Google UK Showing US Based Spelling Suggestions
If you search at Google UK for keywords such as [search engine optimisation] or [personalised napkins] or the like, you will get US based spelling suggestions from Google. Here are some screen captures: The old S vs Z in US vs UK English. As you can imagine, this is not just annoying for UK searchers but also can be a bit insulting. So far, Google has not commented in any of the threads I have